Pieter van Musschenbroek

Pieter van Musschenbroek (March 14th 1692 with Leyde - September 19th 1761 with Leyde), Dutch physicist.

He exerted initially the Médecine, then was successively professor of Philosophie, Mathématiques and medicine with Duisbourg, Utrecht, and finally with Leyde in 1740.

He was the pupil and the friend of Willem Jacob 'S Gravesande.

He contributed strongly by his lessons, his discoveries and his works to introduce in Holland experimental philosophy and the newtonianism; one estimates especially his research on the electricity, the Magnétisme, the Capillarité, the pyrometer; it had share with the famous experiment of the Leyden jar.

While Réaumur tried to improve quality of the pig iron and cast iron by testing the tensile strength of metal wire, Musschenbroek tried to directly measure the resistance of samples in the form of bars; it was necessary for him for that to implement increased tractive efforts, which it managed to do by exploiting the properties of the lever. The machine which it built is described in its Dissertationes of 1729. It measured the resistance of several gasolines of Bois and several stones and metals, consigning the results in its Institutiones in 1734. It highlighted the difference in resistance of materials in traction and compression. This book, translated into French in 1751, had a considerable influence on the engineers and in particular on Coulomb, which took along this book when it left on mission for Martinique. Measurements of Musschenbroek were criticized by Buffon because it used only bars of reduced section, even if it were not more of wire. Measuring the rupture of the bars in inflection, Buffon noted simply that the resistance of the wood of same a gasoline is very variable and approximately increases with the Density.

Musschenbroek continued work of Amontons on friction, and highlighted the influence of the surface of contact. It drew the attention to the roidor of the cords , a dangerous and paradoxical phenomenon observed aboard sailing ships on the pulleys. The abbot Bossut continued research on this problem and Coulomb proposed a formula giving an account of the observations.

Musschenbroek was corresponding Academies of Science of Paris, Berlin, Saint-Petersbourg, London, etc

Publications

a speech Of certa methodo philosophiæ experimentalis , 1723;
of the Elements of physics , in Latin, ( Elementa Physica ) 1726, reprinted after its death under the title of Introductio AD philosophiam naturorum , 1762 (translated into French by Sigaud Lafond);
Dissertationes physicae experimentalis and geometricae of magnete (1729);
Of methodo instituendi tried out physices , 1730;
Tentamina experimentórum naturalium in Accademia del Cimento (1731);
Institutiones physicæ (1734), translated into French in 1751;
Æris praestantia in humoribus corporis humani (1739);
Institutiones logicæ (1764).

Sources

Rene Dugas - History of Mechanics (1955), ED. from Griffon, Neuchâtel, Swiss
Stephen Timoshenko - History off Strength off Materials (1953), rééd. ED. Dover (1982).

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